Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

Interesting question. The only term I've found so far that sort of covers it is "rhotacism," for which The Oxford Companion to the English Language gives a meaning "referring to an /r/ pronounced like /w/," but 1) it obviously refers only to r's, and 2) "rhotacism" is such a vague term as to be essentially useless (Dorlands says "imperfect pronunciation of the r sound," but other sources refer to turning other sounds into r's). I hereby propose the term "wowism," based on the Semitic name of the letter w. Weally, I find it quite attwactive!

That's the term I heard before, but all I could think of was rhotacization, for turning esses into ars in Latin. But do you say /waU/ or /v@v/ for the Hebrew letter in question?

cb: Thanks for the term. But I was thinking of popular or older terms for something that, at least in literature and movies, has always been portrayed as an affectation of the upper classes in Britain.

??you say /waU/ or /v@v/ for the Hebrew letter in question?

The latter, for Modern Hebrew, but when referring to the ancient Semitic languages the former. And didn't the Greeks, or some dialects, use "waw" as an alternative name for digamma?

lallism for /l/
rhotacism for /r/
sigmatism for /s/

VERY, VERY OLD TERMS!!

cb: Thanks. I was looking around some more on the web for some of these terms. Rhotacism is an interesting turn since to me its name implies something becoming an /r/, rather then something being derhotacized.

Rhotacism, sigmatism, lallism (or lamdacism /lambdicism), came under the general heading of 'dyslalia' (speech sound disorder of unknown origin, or 'faulty articulation').

None of these terms are used in Speech-Language Pathology nowadays, but they were named for the sound that was AFFECTED or DISTORTED (not for what was happening to the target sound), using the Greek alphabet letter-names. So rhotacism meant an error producing /r/, and so forth - not that 'r' was 'rhotacised'!

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/1900-1945.html
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/history_subpages/potter.html

I know the affectations you are referring to. They were associated with British upper class fops, and 18th Century dandies, as well as more contemporary literary characters like Evelyn Waugh's Bertie Wooster.

See Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals (1775)

You might search 'infantilism' or 'affectation' or 'mannered speech' + British or + English. Also, try upper + crust + catholic (really!).

cb

I've been trying to teach a class of language undergraduates about rhotacism and, in particular, give them pointers about how to "improve" the 'r' sound with exercises. Can't find them anywhere, though. Anyone out there know of any?